Flunking Sainthood A Year of Breaking the Sabbath, Forgetting to Pray, and Still Loving My Neighbor

One of Publishers Weekly's Top 100 Books of 2011!

This wry memoir tackles twelve different spiritual practices in a quest to become more saintly, including fasting, fixed-hour prayer, the Jesus Prayer, gratitude, Sabbath-keeping, and generosity. Although Reiss begins with great plans for success ("Really, how hard could that be?" she asks blithely at the start of her saint-making year), she finds to her growing humiliation that she is failing - not just at some of the practices, but at every single one. What emerges is a funny yet vulnerable story of the quest for spiritual perfection and the reality of spiritual failure, which turns out to be a valuable practice in and of itself.

Table of Contents

• Behind the scenes
• January - Choosing practices
• February - Fasting in the desert
• March - meeting Jesus in the kitchen. . . or not
• April - Lectio divination
• May - Nixing shopertainment
• June - Centering Prayer er, The Jesus Prayer Look! a squirrel!
• July - Unorthodox Sabbath
• August - Thanksgiving every day
• September - Benedictine Hospitality
• October - What would Jesus eat?
• November - Seven five three times a day will I praise you
• December - Generosity
• Epilogue - Practice makes imperfect